Earlier, when I made my comment about it bieng a reputable organization for conservative lawyers, I almost parenthetically added, “sounds like it’s right up Bricker’s alley.” I’ve got you figured out, I think.
The Post doesn’t clarify if there is a middle initial or not in the directory they received. We’ll have to wait this one out, I suppose.
I can’t find a transcript of the actual hearings, but with various media sources saying things like “The nominee himself did not explain Monday how his name came to be listed on the Federalist Society Lawyers’ Division Leadership Directory, 1997-1998”, I’m assuming he’s been questioned about it. Otherwise they could be reporting things like “The nominee himself did not deny that he beats his wife and children” and get away with it.
But your two cites actually contradict your friend, unless I’m misreading your post, which is quite possible since I’m just “amateur lawyering” in this thread. 
I agree. His nomination was hard fought, and the Federalist Society stuff is not new (except maybe the roster is newly discoverd). The questionnaire specifically asks about organization memberships, and he didn’t list it. You can bet he would have been questioned about it back then if there was any basis for doing so.
The confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court seat haven’t happened yet and, as Gfactor has shown, the hearings for the DC Circuit didn’t involve anyone asking anything about the Federalist Society. When the various media sources say, “The nominee himself did not explain Monday…”, I assume they mean, “When called by various media sources, the nominee himself (and his spokespeople) did not explain Monday…”
How do my two cites contradict my friend?
Heh heh… well, given past conversations, it’s not exactly an insight on the level of boxers-or-briefs, Ginger-or-Mary-Ann, or beer-wine-or-liquor, but, yes, you are right on the money…
Is that supposed to be a brilliant insight, or just a witty rejoineder? It’s not like he’s been hiding anything-- quite the opposite, in fact.
I would have thought it would be obvious that I was attempting humor.
Control over one’s own body is *not * a matter of privacy? That’s not even a reasonable thought? Wow. Well, perhaps not for someone who is starting from a personal religious belief and is busily attempting to find a way to rationalize making the law fit it.
Too late. Settled law. Deal with it. Or are you acknowledging that the Federalist Society is not conservative but actually reactionary?
My 3 year-old nephew did this once
-it turned out to be doodoo. :eek:
Actually, there was some discussion of the FS, and, IIRC, another nominee was questioned about his FS membership. All of this tends to show that the committee members saw FS membership as an issue and called members on it. But they didn’t do so with Roberts.
E.g.,
Senator Schumer’s statement regarding nominee Sutter in http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/pdf/108hrg/89324.pdf (p. 62)
Senator Durbin’s statement regarding Roberts in http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/26jan20041230/www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/pdf/108hrg/92548.pdf (p. 58)
Durbin and Sutton colloquy in http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate/pdf/108hrg/89324.pdf (p. 88)
That was my mistake. I’d been looking into other confirmation hearings for another thread (the thread where the “Blue Slip” has come up) when I posted that, and got the two confused. You’re probably correct in that he didn’t explain it to the media.
It’s probably me misreading you, but you stated:
and then this:
I’m assuming the first quoted text is based on the two cites (you didn’t link, so perhaps this is where I’m confused, but it reads that way to me), and that the second quoted text is based on your politically aware friend, his knowledge of this other lawyer, and what he speculates. The two quotes seem to clearly contradict one another.
While I’m sure the disconnect is likely on my end, I’m still not seeing it.
common law?
Sorry, yeah, my phrasing was unclear…I meant that you’d shown that nobody’d questioned Roberts about the Federalist Society.
I’m still not sure how the quotes contradict each other. As I said, I don’t have any links for the cites, as it doesn’t appear that they’re available online. But here’s what my friend relayed to me:
- CQ and Roll Call report that Roberts has lobbying ties that were previously undisclosed.
- CQ and/or Roll Call (it’s unclear) then say, "No, wait, that’s another John Roberts who also worked at Hogan & Hartson; it doesn’t look like Judge Roberts ever did that lobbying.
- The Washington Post, among others, reports that Roberts is listed as being on the 1997-98 D.C. steering committee for the Federalist Society. Roberts denies this.
- My friend speculates that the John-Roberts-who-lobbied might actually be the John-Roberts-who-is-on-the-steering-committee. If there is a John-Roberts-who-lobbied who is distinct from John-Roberts-the-judge, this nicely fits the known facts.
- People in this thread call John-Roberts-the-judge a bald-faced liar.
- I offer an alternative explanation, admittedly without any proof.
Where’s the contradiction?
That was the problem. Your original post didn’t make it clear (to me, at least) that the original sources were then also the source of the change in stance.
Then what, specifically, would a constitutional right to “privacy” guarantee?
A right to privacy amendment would be a Rosarch Ink Blot amendment. Each person would look at it and deduce different protected activities and I suspect that we would hear the same complaints that we hear about Equal Protection.
It’s not reasonable in this context… which I notice has already begun shifting from its very narrow theoretical tone, responding to Blaron’s “But since people like you, and Bricker, and Bush, and Scalia, and Thomas, and probably Judge Roberts are around we need a right to privacy explictly written into the text of the constitution so it won’t be messed with.” I was pointing out when I responded that the only basis for my disagreement with the “right to privacy” was that it was defined as a federal constitutional right without appearing in the Constitution. Others offered questions for clarification, and I responded further. You’re now trying to expand what I wrote into a general treatise on the law. It’s not. It’s a treatise on how I would like the law to be handled.
In our settled law, of course abortion arises from the right to privacy. I know that. End of discussion, if that’s your barometer.
If you wish further clarification of how a textualist might want the law handled, then I’d be happy to reply further.
Sure. I agree it’s settled law, as I said above.
Of course, Bowers v. Hardwick was settled law in 2000, come to think of it.
Was Lawrence v. Texas “radical?”
That gets into the interesting question about what constitutes “settled law.” Come to think of it, I was going to bring that up in my next post in the Ideology and Extraordinary Circumstances thread – I’ve been lax on getting to that, and I’ll do it tonight.
No, really, Bricker: If you would support a “right to privacy” amendment to the U.S. Constitution – one which emphatically would not guarantee the right to abortion – then what, specifically, would it guarantee?
The right to privacy does have *effective * Constitutional status, like it or not, Bricker. The concept of penumbral rights is established too. Abortion rights are therefore embedded in the list of Constitutional rights. You can wish it otherwise all you want to, but you might as well just change your screen name to Miniver Cheevy if that’s it.
Is the Federalist Society reactionary or not?